Messages - reverseapachemaster

IMO, the best way to implement this is to get a large surface area plastic container, dump your weighed out grains in there, spread them around and then start spraying. Spray, mix, spray, mix, until all of the malt just barely sticks to your hand when mixing. It doesn't take long at all, cuts down on dust and keeps the husk far more intact than dry milling.

Seems like for the LODO process that is introducing a lot of aerated water to the grain, which I thought was to be avoided at all costs.

Assuming infection is the cause seems like jumping the gun to me. If you have repeat problems with infection, especially in only one style, then it is more likely a process problem than a chronic infection. Granted, if you do not use a sanitizer it is certainly more likely that a chronic infection exists; but I still would not jump on that as a cause without ruling out other probable causes.

If you are testing hops for your own purposes then you should select a recipe that best reflects the types of beers you normally brew. If you normally brew west coast IPAs then the way a particular hop interacts with Conan in an APA probably isn't as indicative of how you might use that hop in the future as it could be.

I tried brewing outside once when it was in the mid-20s and windy as heck. Flame went out a few times on the burner and it really struggled to keep a boil. Then the tank ran out with about five minutes to go. Awful brew day.

Tried to coolship that wort. Wort froze. Unsurprisingly did not turn out and turned into five gallons of yard fertilizer.

Once primary fermentation is complete the beer can be left to ambient temperatures unless the ambient conditions are so cool the yeast won't do proper cleanup or so warm that it is adverse to the beer. Primary fermentation is not necessarily complete after four or five days although for most yeast strains and most beers that will be the case.

I hear it's difficult to rid your equipment of brett IF that's what it is.The common practice is to separate that equipment from your usual brew gear and save for future brettanomyces batches.

I regularly use the same plastic equipment across clean/sour/brett beers. The key is cleaning plus proper sanitation. After using equipment for brett/sour and before using it on clean beers I soak in hot water with oxyclean, rinse, soak with cold water with 1 tbsp/gal bleach, rinse and soak with campden tablets (1 tablet/5 gal) and then a final rinse.

You might look at that and think that's more work than buying new equipment but when you're talking about bottling equipment plus hoses, airlocks and stoppers you're talking about duplicates of a lot of equipment.

I bought a ten gallon cooler because everybody says someday you'll want the extra space. In six years of all grain brewing that hasn't been the case. I generally brew small batches and bought a two gallon cooler for that purpose. You can brew smaller batches in a larger cooler. The problem is the geometry changes which can have an effect on efficiency and definitely affects your ability to maintain temperatures. The smallest volume I will do in the ten gallon cooler is three gallons and I'll see a loss of both efficiency and temperature.

Think about how you brew and how you will brew. Will you ever want to brew bigger batches of fairly stout ABV? Desire to fill two kegs off a single batch? If so, you probably want the larger cooler. If you feel like you struggle to polish off five gallon batches then you probably want to go smaller.